


Life Among The Dead

by Destina



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-12
Updated: 2006-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-23 11:34:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2546060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/pseuds/Destina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They go where the road takes them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Among The Dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elynross](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elynross/gifts), [Kim Gasper (mickeym)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mickeym/gifts).



> My very first SPN story, originally posted to LJ in October 2006. Huge thanks to mandysbitch for beta. Love and thanks to Killa, Barkley, Bone, and Trelkez for encouragement and suggestions.

_Monday_

When the road takes on the monotonous rhythm of too many days without stopping, Sam closes his eyes and sees refuge in the space created by the lull: 

_\-- an old-style Ford truck, once candy-apple red, now covered with a thin film of dirt accumulated over weeks on the move. Sam is driving, one hand on the wheel, left elbow resting on the curve of the door. In the rearview mirror, the sky is settling down dark overhead while the sun burns its way into the earth below._

_He doesn't look to his right, but he knows Dean is there beside him, just as he knows they are heading toward something and not away. The truck smells like day-old fast food, Dean's aftershave, and the lack of a hot shower for three days._

_Dean's hand closes on Sam's arm. Warmth spreads through Sam's body at the touch, anticipation of what's to come. "Here, Sammy. Pull off here." Sam turns the wheel and slides them over into a patch of gravel. No other cars on the road, nothing but twilight sky and pavement, open fields on either side._

_His feet hit the ground and he's stretching, walking, ten feet from the truck, then twenty. There's a peaceful grin on his brother's face, marred not at all by the tiny scar across his cheek. Somehow the road feels firmer, the ground more settled; he's not tired, and he's not scared, and he's not even worried anymore--_

That's where it ends, the edges of the future blurring in and collapsing, too dense to hold their own weight. He doesn't call it a vision because it might not be; it feels like a daydream, too familiar and safe to be anything else, and it doesn't come with pain or urgency. He holds it as long as he can, capturing the colors of longing before they fade. 

"Sam? You okay?" Dean says, that low note of concern in his voice, and Sam comes back from it, ignoring his brother's curious stare. He straightens up in the seat and nods his head, though he can still smell the hot oil on pavement, see the heat rising up on the asphalt ahead. The memory grits in his teeth like sand. 

They pull off somewhere outside of Daleville, Ohio and check into the Daytimer Motel, a name Sam thinks is probably spectacularly out of place for what goes on there. Two prostitutes have taken up residence on the corner, perched on the stone retaining wall which holds in some overgrown weeds by the office, and they eye Sam with speculation, though neither speaks. Might have something to do with the disinterested glare Dean sends their way. Dean's always been this way about hookers, and Sam has never quite figured out why. He supposes it's just one more of the quirks tied to the early years on the road, when Dean was old enough to remember the times of their life and Sam mostly wasn't. 

While Dean unlocks the door, Sam stands by and watches a man in a ratty army-green coat passing dime bags to polo-shirted tourists. Dean kicked his ass the first and only time Sam ever smoked a joint. He can still feel those bruises eight years later, Dean's fingers digging into his skin as if the marks had never healed. Legal drugs are all Dean will tolerate; booze, mostly, and painkillers, in an emergency. Dad preached the gospel of clear thinking for years - _it'll keep you alive boys, you remember that_ \- and Sam knows he has that to thank for a full ride to Stanford. 

Both the beds have mattresses full of jagged lumps. Sam knows because he flopped down on one and immediately dove for the other in hopes it'd be better. It wasn't. 

"What's it going to be for dinner: Vienna sausages, Spam, or jerky?" Dean pulls a handful of canned food from his duffel and drops it on his bed. "Oh, and hey, there are chips in here, too. My chips," he amends, tossing them on his pillow, "which, if you ask nicely, you can share, on account of how you're still a growing boy."

"Will you cut the growing boy shit?" Sam says, rolling over. Lightning-quick, he dives for Dean's bed and makes a grab at the chips, but Dean intercepts him and they wrestle for a moment, grinning at each other as if they were still kids. When Sam breaks Dean's grip, Dean flings the bag of chips across the room, where it hits the mirror with a smack and falls into the sink. 

"Nice," Sam says, and reaches his hand into the duffel. He touches two cereal boxes - that'd be Dean's Rice Krispies - and a couple of granola bars. Nothing appealing. 

"Make yourself useful and go get us some sodas." Dean fishes in his pocket and produces maybe enough change for half of one soda, if it was twenty years ago. 

Sam counters by fishing out enough to buy Dean his very own sugar rush. "Get it yourself," he says, pitching the change on Dean's bed, then flops back down on his own bed and buries his face in the pillow. "Too tired."

"Thanks, loser." The door bangs shut when Dean goes back to the office for the soda, so Sam closes his eyes. He dozes off wondering how many years this particular pillow beneath his head has been in service, and how many times it's been punched and bunched to make it softer, until it's as hard and flat as a Kansas prairie.

 

_Tuesday_

 

Sam sits in the Impala beside Dean on the outskirts of town. Together they watch the railroad tracks for signs of ghostly signalmen with phantom lanterns, but Sam's attention wanders. Head back on the seat, he looks up at the tree line, the soft play of moonlight strumming out from the tips of the branches, like bright ectoplasm across the sky. 

He remembers a pile of books accumulated on the floor next to the desk in the living room, half Jess's, half his; graphic novels, textbooks, treatises on demon manifestation, all mixed together. She never asked and he never explained, and they left it at that. 

In the margins of each book, he made tiny notes, drawings, imprecise. He caught himself doing it, told himself it was the equivalent of doodling, no matter the subject matter. He began making notes in a separate notebook, idle thoughts and observations, the occasional newspaper clipping. 

Two weeks before Dean showed up, he burned the notebook and its black leather cover, and stood by the trashcan watching the flames curl over the edges. It wasn't the information he objected to; it was the tendency toward collection in the first place. 

He wishes now he could undo it, but of course there's no use in looking back. 

Dean's voice brings him back to the moment. "Hey. Nap time was earlier, after snacks and juice. Snap to."

Sam snorts. "Funny. Who fell asleep in the shower last week with his head propped up on the soap dish?" He smiles at Dean, all teeth, and receives a scowl in return. "What about these phantom signalmen, anyway? I wonder if they get confused by the fact that the lights are electric now."

"Confused?" Now Dean is looking at him like he's insane. "Spirits don't get confused. They're stuck in a single emotional state."

"Well," Sam says, staring out at a clear night, "I guess their emotional state is confusion, then, because they're looking for something that isn't there." 

"It's 4AM, maybe we should pack up and-" Dean begins, when Sam points. 

"There. See that?"

They both peer out at what might be headlights, might even be reflection off the low clouds, but after a second Dean's lips purse and he shoves open the door. "Can't tell from here." 

Sam climbs out after him and they jog up the track in silence, rocks and gravel crunching beneath their feet. There's a glow receding from them twenty yards away, so they pick up the pace. 

When it winks out, a vague feeling of unease comes over Sam. "That can't be good," he breathes. 

Just then Dean says, "What the-" 

By the time Sam has turned, there's a shadow behind Dean, and the bright glow of a lantern light. Dean backs up a step, but the lantern flies up, cracking right across his raised shoulder and outstretched hand, catching his face. Dean falls, muttering, "Mother _fucker_!" under his breath, and Sam brings the shotgun to bear: both barrels full of rock salt, blowing the shadows to pieces, if only for a moment. The remains of the lantern drop to the ground, brass and glass going scattershot over the rocks. 

"C'mon," Sam says, giving Dean a hand up. Dean's fingers slide against his and Sam realizes there's blood across his palm. 

"Guess it's real," Dean says grimly and together they lope back toward the car. Nothing else to do here, now that they know for sure. Time to hit the books; time to find the grave. 

When they step down off the track, Sam loses his balance, but it's something more, that sideways feeling, and he falters. Straight to his knees, and then he struggles to stand up because he knows how it looks, how bad Dean thinks it is, and he'd do almost anything to keep Dean from thinking he's weak. 

Some days, when the world goes sideways, Sam isn't able to slide with it; he hangs on the wire, stopped between posts, until Dean's hands anchor him, push him down to his destination. Then it's freefall, the hammering of sound and pressure in his brain, behind his eyes, a vibration that rattles his teeth. He tries not to go through the day dreading it. 

Dean, though - that's another matter. Dean watches him even more carefully now, if that's possible, and the fact that Sam's a grown man seems to make no difference at all. Even so, Sam hasn't had a vision or dreamed anything at all for weeks, but he knows better than to think it's gone for good. It's hibernating, coiled up somewhere in his brain. 

Dean hauls him to his feet and looks at Sam with veiled fear, and that makes Sam all the more determined to get it under control. 

Only one of them should be that scared, and Sam isn't willing for it to be Dean. 

Dean's still looking at him, that expression that says he can't understand, that there ought to be a way for Sam to crack open and share the experience, to let Dean in. His hands are still on Sam, one curled at the joint of shoulder and neck, squeezing gently; one on his arm, pushing him upright every time he sways. 

"It's...I'm..." Sam tries, and then gives up. He can feel the truth shaking around inside him, a whirlwind of complicated disbelief, demon-essence and darkness. This time it doesn't feel as urgent; it's somewhere off in the distance, a disjointed image of a woman calling for help by a wrecked minivan, and he's going to need time to sort it out. 

Dean leaves him leaning on the side of the car and walks around to the driver's side, and Sam makes himself open the door and ease inside. The seats are cold again, all the warmth bled away in the short time they were gone. 

He remembers winter nights in the back of the car, curled up against Dean, one blanket to share while he watched the back of their father's head, waited for Dad's eyes to drift toward them in the rearview mirror. He remembers Dean's hands fisting in his shirt as he tossed and turned, and the way the road hummed beneath the tires, like a one-note lullaby. 

Outside, black asphalt, yellow lines; the distance between points narrows, and time slows, until they are barely moving at all. 

**

It's not until they're inside the room, until Dean is easing out of his grimy, bloody clothes, that Sam realizes Dean is gashed in several places - face, neck, arm, left thigh. He pauses in the act of loading ice cubes into a nubbly washcloth and stares at Dean, who peels off his jeans, showing off a deep gash across his thigh, five inches long and still oozing blood. Sam looks the question at Dean, who answers with a shrug. "Fell on something sharp. Maybe glass. Hurts like hell." 

Sam nods and throws the wrapped ice over the back of his neck, then goes for the kit. There's an art to sewing wounds, an order Sam appreciates. Dean hands him the gauze, gives him instructions. Sam knows what to do, but if it comforts Dean to say it, he's good with that. 

"Got to stop the bleeding first," Dean says. Sam takes a deep breath and presses down on the wound. Dean's choked grunt of pain shivers straight through Sam. 

"Sorry," he says, helpless. Dean's lips twist into a thin line. Sam looks at the white gauze against angry red skin, skin vulnerable to everything violent and twisted, through which anything can be absorbed, pushed. He blinks back tears from nowhere. 

Dean falls back on the bed, one arm over his eyes. "Forget the apology, just hurry the fuck up."  
His jaw is clenched tight enough to shatter bone. There's nothing to numb the skin or dull the senses, nothing but a shared agony of pain and anticipation. 

Sam rests one hand against Dean's upper thigh and moves a wet washcloth through blood and bits of skin. Dean swallows hard, his body strung tight under Sam's hands. Sam thinks that this is what it is to be Dean. He's been waiting years for that shell to crack, and it never has. Beneath his hand the skin is warm and alive, the pulse of blood and warmth. 

The needle is as old as Sam, stolen by their dad years ago. Threaded though it, stolen silk, deceptively fine and gentle against Sam's fingers, a whispering anachronism. His father never taught him what to do with it, but he did teach Dean, and all those lessons were internalized; no one ever stitched up Dean but their father, and no one ever stitched up Sam but Dean. 

He remembers their father's big hands, the way he held the needle steady the first time Dean threaded it; Sam was thirteen, Dean sixteen, and Dean's hands shook. _If the edges won't close, it's got to be sewn. If it's too deep to sew, you don't fuck around, you take your brother to the hospital and let them do it, no matter where you are. You hear me, Dean?_

As long as Dean is conscious, he puts up a hell of a fight about any doctor touching him. Sam's a different story, but then for Dean, Sam always was. The ache in Sam's chest grows stronger, the press of tears a little closer. 

With his fingers, he draws the edges of the wound closer together, then pushes the needle in perpendicular to the wound, penetrating the skin. So easy, to push right through; too easy. Loop, then again, and in the opposite direction. Each time the needle goes through, Dean hisses against his teeth and Sam winces. He applies tension and cuts the thread, which flies apart at the snick of the scissors. "All done," he says, and sinks down on the floor, still holding the needle in his bloody hands. 

Dean doesn't move for a long time. Finally he pulls his legs up on the bed and is still. Pain takes a lot out of Dean; it always has. 

Sam digs the needle into his jeans, through thick denim more impenetrable than skin. They're not invulnerable; they never were. Things slip past the surface all the time. Visions no normal person was ever meant to have. Glass, eating down into the body. Demons, pushing past barriers of flesh and bone as if they exist only as a framework for evil. Nothing can stop the inevitable breach of skin, and Sam knows it. 

What he doesn't get is why it makes him feel alone when Dean is within arm's reach. 

**

Dean sleeps through the rest of it, which isn't surprising or new. Sam cleans him up from toe to head, washing his wounds and leaving most of them open to the air. Best thing for them, or so Dad always said. He gently taps a butterfly bandage over the top edge of the gash over Dean's jaw, but it won't stay put, so he gives up. 

Sam dumps his bloody clothes and the washcloths in the bathroom, then piles all the supplies on the counter by the sink. He washes his hands and when the pink water circles the drain, he can sense something of the vision that shorted out his body earlier, a vague, ominous wink of memory. He glances over his shoulder at Dean's still form, then grabs on to the edge of the counter, just in case. 

Nothing happens. It's a relief, but it's also like stepping closer to the edge of a cliff in the dark; hard to say when he might slip over. 

It's been a while since they've slept in the same bed, but this place has only king-sized; it's a place for secret liaisons, not tired brothers. Sam sprawls out beside his brother, kicks his shoes off, leaves his t-shirt and boxers on. No need to turn out the light, since Dean will only wake up if Sam does. He reaches across Dean to the night table and grabs Dad's journal. He's read through it four or five times since it came into their possession, but he's usually looking for something specific, a fragment or clue to help them solve the puzzle and move on. This time, he reads each page top to bottom. 

His father's writing is small, square, urgent; it demands attention, pushing forward off the page as if to insist it be read now. There are drawings, bold pencil lines drawn over and over for emphasis, stark and immediate. Clippings are pasted in with rubber cement; Sam recognizes the smell, which reminds him of grade school and paste and horrible drawings Dean always pretended to love when Sam pressed them into his hands. 

He remembers Joey Marshall, the class clown, the boy who was Sam's best friend for the five weeks he attended second grade in Edrin, Montana. He remembers Joey's death, the way he drowned, and the smell of the funeral parlor, a pungent harshness covered with flowers. He thinks maybe his father held his hand, but that might have been Dean, too. After a while, it was hard to remember which was which. He does remember asking his father if Joey would become a ghost, and the way his father's face changed, hardened. _Don't go looking for the dead, son. They'll come looking for you often enough._

Sam hadn't really understood what his father meant back then. 

Book closed, pressed to his chest, Sam turns on his side and watches Dean sleep. Since they were kids, he's thought that maybe they are on borrowed time. Now that he realizes the part he's played in bringing tragedy to his own family, his sense of wasted time is stronger. Maybe he could go back to school; maybe he could lead a normal life. 

Maybe Dean would die without him, alone in some backwater town no one's heard of, afraid and defiant, and Sam would never find him. 

He slides his hand under Dean's pillow until he can feel the cool sharp edges of Dean's knife. He's not paranoid enough to want a weapon near him all the time. 

Then again, he's always had Dean. 

**

Sometime in the middle of the night, Sam crawls up from the depths of a colorful sleep, images of blood and Dean and their father settling down out of reach. When he opens his eyes, Dean is turned on his side, watching him. It should feel weird, but it isn't. Dean's expression is serious, his eyes full of shifting emotions. Sam had forgotten how much Dean gave away with those eyes in close quarters, and now there are questions there, though Dean doesn't say one word. 

Dean spends a long time looking at Sam's face, long enough that Sam smiles, because yeah, now it's a little weird. 

Sam is still clutching Dad's journal, so he rolls on his back and drops it on the floor. It's easier when he's not able to see Dean watching him. Dean says, softly, "Sam...what're they like? I mean...what are you seeing?"

It's not a very precise question, but Sam gets it. The thought of trying to explain it makes him tired, but for Dean he'll try to capture the jagged glass of it, the scratching and pulling of reality, the way he finds himself suspended between what's real and what's to come. 

Sam closes his eyes and tries to picture it. "It's never the same. Images, sometimes. Like looking into a broken mirror that someone's moving around. The more it moves, the more it hurts. They're pictures in my brain...that sounds weird, but..." 

Dean shifts on the bed, and the light clicks off. Sam remembers begging Dean to leave the light on, when he was a kid; he remembers pushing the gun his father gave him away, and Dean's soft advice. _Get used to it, Sammy. Dad and I won't always be around._ He remembers fear, like freefalling, at the idea Dean could ever be gone. He'd thought Dean was immune to freefall. 

So many things have bits and pieces of Dean; so many things can take him, hurt him. Dean's hand is on his forehead, then tangled in his hair, but Dean is still at a distance. Dean never lets anyone in; Dean can be cut, hurt, possessed, burned, but he won't let Sam in. And maybe it's been mutual, but Sam can change that now. 

When he turns on his side facing Dean, Dean's breath draws in sharply. Sam reaches out in the direction of Dean's body. He touches Dean's shoulder, slides his hand up toward Dean's neck and finds the string; he draws his fingers down the soft string to the talisman. Beneath the backs of Sam's fingers, Dean's skin is hot. Sam shifts sideways, closer to Dean, so he is on his back and his head is against the curve of Dean's arm, and then he lifts his head, slowly, until his lips touch Dean's. Just a brush of lips, and then his tongue licks across Dean's bottom lip. 

Dean jerks back, the heel of his hand pushed hard into Sam's shoulder. "Sam," he says, low. 

There's resistance, but nothing Sam can't overcome. He's thinking about it, what to do, when the hand pushes harder, and Dean raises up over Sam in the dark. Sam takes a breath and feels it catch in his throat when Dean's mouth covers his, a slow open press, easy exploration, turning Sam's soft calculated plans into a handful of ashes. It goes on forever, time narrowing, until Dean jerks back for the second time. Sam lifts a hand to his wet lips, reaches out for Dean, but Dean is back to pushing him away. There's something about the way his fingers flex against Sam's skin, some signal Sam feels like he should understand from touch alone, but then the touch is gone. 

Dean lies down again, his back to Sam, though his breathing is ragged. There's no talking about it, now or ever. Sam knows that much for sure. He's not quite sure what that was, but what bothers him more is that he knows what it wasn't, what it can't be. 

He can't close his eyes for fear of what he might imagine on the dark screen of his mind, so he lies quiet in the dark, listening to the silence around them. 

 

_Wednesday_

With very little effort - a few conversations and a book of local folklore -- they find the grave of the signalman, overgrown with weeds and barely marked. In the dark, they dig side by side until they uncover the rotted coffin. Sam dumps salt over the bones and steps back when Dean pours lighter fluid over the grave. It's Sam who lights the match and throws it. 

By the light of the bonfire, Dean's face is half in shadow. Light catches his eyes, turning them bright green. Dean turns to Sam and says, "Guess the train'll be late tonight." Sam snort-chuckles, Dean gives him a grin, and they watch the fire flare up and burn down, exhausting its fuel. 

When the warmth of the flames is gone, the damp night encroaches. They push dirt back into the open grave and whack it down with the flat of their shovels, snickering quietly, before heading back to the car. 

Graveyard gives way to open land, not yet harvested for the dead, still filled with trees and soft grass. Just back from the road, where passing cars can't see, Sam stops and looks up at a tall tree, gnarled and knotted, at least as old as the cemetery. Older, maybe. He turns, puts his back to it, and looks at Dean. His brother's shoulders are hunched, his head turned toward the vast sea of headstones. Sam looks away, and a moment later Dean is there, hands on the tree trunk on either side of Sam's body. Sam bows his head, and Dean presses his face to the open, vulnerable space at the curve of Sam's neck. 

Sam lifts his arm, puts it around Dean, and they stand silent for a moment. Dean's lips linger at the pulse of Sam's heart, just below his ear, and his teeth graze there, not accidental. He slams a hand into the trunk of the tree, scattering bark over Sam's shoulder, and then he's walking away. 

The night air seems too thick to breathe, but Sam pushes up and gets moving, following behind. He remembers wandering graveyards in the middle of the night with his father, squeezing Dean's hand with all the strength he had, and his father's whispered warning: _Don't be afraid of the dead, Sammy. They can't hurt you in any way that counts, not if you're ready. The living can hurt you much worse._

Dean has the trunk open by the time Sam gets there. He waits for Sam to toss his shovel in, then says, "Man, I am starving. In fact..." He raises his eyebrows. "Barbeque?"

Sam laughs softly, mouth open. "You are a sick bastard."

"You love it," Dean tells him. "I'm thinkin', extra sauce." 

 

_Thursday_

The inside of the Impala is a swamp, windows fogged, seats actually damp with condensation. To pass the time, they play old favorite games, twisted versions of fictional I Spy involving invisible demons and sex acts. The car seems cramped, too close. Sam watches Dean drive, and for a moment he thinks he can see where Dean is stitched together, how he's made, all the soft vulnerable places he found as a kid before Dean covered them with armor. 

"Quit staring at me, freak," Dean says, frowning at Sam at an angle. 

"Sorry." Sam turns his head back to the nothing view, an opaque grey world spattered with driving rain. "Damn, this car is getting smaller by the day."

"No kidding." Dean's hands tighten on the wheel, his mouth set in a straight line. Games won't work today. "Let's find a place to stop. I could use a beer right about now."

"I just want something warm," Sam answers, his stomach growling at the idea of it. 

"That's not a bad idea, either," Dean says, flashing a smile forward, and Sam knows what he means, though it's not what Sam had in mind. The cold neon pink of a vacancy sign steers them in, and Dean gets one room. Sam takes the credit card, just in case. 

At the roadhouse up the street, Dean sets about getting laid, and Sam sets about watching the dance, warm soup and cold beer in front of him. There's a black-haired girl at the bar, tight jeans with two buttons bringing down the pocket. Dean eyes her like she's not wearing anything at all. She closes her sunset-pink lips around the straw of her drink and leaves a bright ring of invitation as it slides away. There's also a man about Dean's age, tall, honey-brown hair, who looks at Dean's lips like he can imagine all sorts of things, things Sam tries not to imagine himself, but the images snap through his brain like lightning, and he wonders. 

Dean's eyes meet Sam's across the room, and he looks hard at Sam, speaking with his eyes, something Sam can't hear; he isn't on the right frequency. 

Dean leaves the bar with the man on his heels ten minutes later, and Sam has another beer. For Dean, a decent interval is about an hour, and then it's safe to barge in. A lot can happen in an hour. Sam could email twenty friends; he could chat with one or two, catching up on gossip and laughing at trivial shit that feels much more hollow than a month before. The world seemed easier then, in the space between leaving his father and returning to his brother, where he had a life of his own. 

"I'm fine, everything is fine, things are great," he says, over and over, once each conversation at a minimum, until he starts to believe it a little himself. He doesn't think about the empty barstool next to him, or the way the bar seems infinitely bigger without Dean beside him.

When he slips the key in the door lock and twists it open, he finds Dean sprawled out, fast asleep, sheet wound around his ankles, as if he couldn't be bothered to dress. Sam shucks off his shirt and crawls between his own cold sheets. 

When he puts his head back down on the pillow he can feel the road beneath them, and the world in motion, just as though they'd never stopped at all. 

 

_Friday_

 

The sun comes out somewhere past Oklahoma, no doubt brought on by Dean's sunny disposition. Dean doesn't mention that little scene at the bar, so Sam says it, casual, with a raised eyebrow and a faint smile. "Seriously, Dean, two rooms. We can afford it. It's not our money."

"I've got nothing to hide from you," Dean says, and Sam thinks: now that's a goddamned lie. He thinks of the tall stranger Dean took to bed, of all the things that happened in that hour, and there's an ache in his chest no amount of sleep and sunshine will cure. 

They make small talk the rest of the way, mindless chit-chat about the grief of buying back college textbooks and refurbishing old cross-bows and the like, and of course Sam is struck by cognitive dissonance mid-conversation, worlds colliding, aligning, spinning apart. Dean hasn't changed, except to become a little harder, or maybe a little less forgiving. That part Sam isn't quite so sure about. 

By the time they pull into Louisville, they are both amped and ready to get down to business. They find their objective easily; Dean's been there before. "You'll like her," he says to Sam as he knocks. "She's cool." 

And so she is, but Safrita Coa has the strangest accent Sam has ever heard, a cross between a southern drawl and something much more exotic. He can't place it, but after a while he stops trying, because the sweet lilt of her voice soothes his jangled nerves like warm butter on soft rolls. She sips her tea and goes through the information Dean sets before her, touching the papers one at a time, absorbing it all through green eyes and mocha skin. 

This is the tenth or twelfth time they've visited someone Dean knows and Sam doesn't, someone Dean introduces, "She helped Dad and me on a tough case." It occurs to him that there's a whole segment of time whitewashed out of his history, a space in his life where the structures and paths never saw Dean's presence and where Dean's life contains no sign of Sam, and for a minute it unnerves him. 

"I'm not sure this is something you boys should tangle with," Safrita says finally, gathering their papers neatly together and handing them to Sam. Her direct green gaze cuts into him, and he has the sense he's being split open and tidily examined for her amusement, though she's been nothing but kind. "These sorts of cases have been tackled by hunters more experienced than both of you and your daddy all put together, and they haven't made much headway."

"Just tell us what we need to do, and we'll handle it," Dean says grimly. Sam wants to interfere, but he's torn between the heat of Dean's confidence, and the chilly absence of his own, vanished in the flames with Jess. 

"All right." She goes to the bookcase and comes back with a notepad, then draws Dean a sketch. "Salt the ground with these symbols, in this order, and you might have a chance. But it's not wise to antagonize a spirit this way unless you have an incantation to get rid of them completely, and I doubt that you do." She looks from Dean to Sam, and Sam suddenly realizes this was a question, and he has Dad's journal tucked into his jacket. 

"Uh," he says, pulling it out. "No...no. I don't remember anything about wood sprites." 

Dean snatches the journal from him with a squinting look of annoyance. "I've been through it, Safrita. That's why I came here."

"I'm sorry I can't be more help to you," she says. "But I do have something to show you. Come with me." Before Sam even realizes she's done it, she has neatly separated them, drawing Dean with her into the next room, a bound circle of two. 

It's the first time Sam can remember being deliberately excluded from anything about the hunt since the night Jess died. It makes him itch to stand up and follow, but he doesn't. 

When they come back, Dean's expression is eloquently blank, and he avoids Sam's eyes. "It was so good to meet you, Sam," she says, smiling in a way that completely reaches her eyes. She clasps his hand and dismisses him so kindly he can barely believe she's pushing him out the door, and the next thing he knows they're in the car, and Dean's avoiding his puzzled glances.

Dean explains, "She's some kind of mage, Dad said," as if that should mean something to Sam, but all it means is that she's not something they kill, and that doesn't seem like the first trait he should gravitate toward. Dean's focused, already moving, already planning out how the hunt will go, and Sam feels it, the strung tension in his body, the excitement. 

"What'd she say to you?" he asks finally, just as they're pulling into the parking lot of the Highway Bandit Inn, but Dean turns off the car and is halfway out before he answers. 

"Nothin' you need to know about," he calls back over his shoulder. Sam doesn't believe it for a hot second. 

They have dinner at the motel, take-out hot dogs with limp french fries, open packages of lurid red ketchup strewn across the room like tiny exploded paint bombs. Sam wolfs his down and then goes back over the research: sylphs, sprites, demons that manifest in the form of innocuous woodland fairies. It seems almost too ridiculous to be true, but they're dangerous, and Sam wants to be ready. 

Dean switches on the TV and is soon engrossed in a hockey game, verbal inasmuch as he's talking to the set and to the game itself, which declines to answer. Sam sits on the edge of the bed and looks at him. Dean is different now than Sam remembers, though he was grown when Sam left for college, and he hasn't changed in the ways that matter. But it dawns on Sam slowly, like soft sunlight through thick fog: Dean was always grown up, always in charge, for as long as Sam can remember. He taught Sam half of everything he knows, and it was the important half: girls, guns, guy-talk, and games. All the things that registered on the scale of need-to-know when Sam was growing up, the Winchester family secrets. 

Dean fidgets on the bed, and Sam drops his gaze, embarrassed to have caught himself staring again. He's conscious of a deep, true desire to curl up with Dean for ready-made comfort like when they were kids, to enter the scope of his influence again, but those days are gone. All that's left now is the road, and what's ahead. 

Sometime after midnight he wakes to find Dean asleep and the TV still on, but muted so he's spared the sounds of gunfire and car chases. Flashes of light explode from the screen, hurting his eyes. He crawls out of bed and finds the remote on the bedspread beneath Dean's outstretched hand. 

Dean's eyes open sleepily as soon as Sam's fingers brush over Dean's. 

For a moment Sam holds his breath, as if he's been caught, busted cold, and it's ridiculous, there's not even a question of why he's there, leaning over Dean's bed, why his hand is resting on top of Dean's. He breaks the pause smoothly and takes the remote from Dean's hand, then turns and sits on Dean's bed to flick the power button off. The room plunges into darkness; the thin outline of exterior lights bleeds through the crack of the door. 

Dean's hand settles in the middle of Sam's back, warm and inviting. Sam can feel his whole body center in that touch, and he leans back into Dean's hand. Dean's fingers curl, and he takes hold of Sam's t-shirt, tugging just a little in case it isn't clear. Sam's holding his breath again, and there's panic at the heart of his fear, but he doesn't move. Dean's presence behind him is dark-incandescent like black light, casting an invisible shadow on Sam. He starts forward, stops; he's anchored there. Dean's hand abandons his shirt and finds the bare patch of skin exposed at the small of his back. 

Even then, there's no forward motion, no stop and start. He lets Dean's touch become catalyst, and he slides away, off the bed, so that Dean's hand must fall away. 

Sam drops the remote on the floor between their beds and burrows under his own sheets and bedspread, suddenly cold. There are things he's learned not to want, things he's trained himself not to see, but the world has cracked open and it's as if he has a body again, skin and hunger and truth bursting out through the shell of grief. He shivers and grabs a pillow, drags it forward until it's flush with his body. 

He dreams of Jess. He always dreams of Jess. This time it's not that night, and there's no fire; there's just Jess, and her smile, and that's why he's crying when he wakes. 

 

_Saturday_

 

On Saturday, Sam nearly dies, and not for the first or even the tenth time. It's possible he has actually died once or twice already, though he supposes Dean would never tell him, and his father wouldn't correct that oversight. He never thought it would be a plant that killed him, though, something out of a class-B horror movie. That's the last thing he thinks before he gets busy trying to survive. 

The smell of wet moss and blood fills Sam's senses just before the forest overtakes him, covering his face and choking off sound and sight. He thrashes and flails, tearing at slender tendrils of ivy twined around his neck and legs, but he can't draw a breath, and he whines deep in his throat. Strong hands - Dean - slip beneath his shoulders and pull; he struggles not to mire himself deeper in the twining overgrowth, but his strength is giving out. He tries to buck Dean off, make him go, but he knows Dean will pull until Sam is dead weight. Literally. 

_oh god Dean get away get the fuck out of here don't let it get you_

Roaring in his ears; the forest reaches up to take them, to pull them in with the dead. And then, as if a switch is pulled, he dislodges from clinging underbrush with a sucking pop and Dean hauls him upright, choking and gasping. His knees buckle even before Dean can set him on his feet; Dean catches him, drags him backwards toward the line of demarcation. Dean throws him on the hood of the car bodily, out of harm's way, for now. 

"Sam!" Dean's face looms over him, and Sam waves him off. He's got air, he'll live, it's all good. Dean hops up on the hood beside him, grabbing a fistful of Sam's shirt and yanking Sam up higher beside him. He braces Sam with his shoulder, and together they watch the amazing sight of plant life creeping toward them, until finally it hits the patch of salted, consecrated ground. 

The night air fills with a screeching noise, thousands of nails on a chalkboard. Sam winces; Dean's harsh breathing quickens on the back of his neck, making Sam's hair stand on end, until finally the wailing stops. The frantic treetops settle down, and the forest smoothes, stills, returning to its usual calm quiet beneath the shining moonlight. 

Behind him, Dean sighs. Sam squashes an irrational urge to shout at him for crossing over that salt line after all the precautions they'd taken, but it was no more than he would do for Dean, and they both knew it. 

Sam leans back on Dean, just a moment's indulgence, to be sure of his presence there. 

"Damn," Dean says, and slides off the car. "Do you think that's the end of it?"

"No," Sam answers. He coughs. Dean is watching him with too much concern in his eyes. Not something Sam wants to deal with. He scoots off the hood, testing the strength of his legs, then lifts his chin and stares at the hood of the Impala, smoothing out invisible divots on the shiny surface.

Dean smiles. "This thing is like an armored tank. Your ass isn't going to make much of an impression." Sam smiles back, and Dean goes on, predictably. "My ass, on the other hand, makes an impression wherever it goes." 

"We haven't stopped that thing," Sam says, looking back toward the forest. "We were out of our depth, Safrita was right."

Dean nods, but in his eyes there's the promise of payback. "We just haven't found what works," he says. "I haven't met the evil thing I can't kill." 

Sam notices Dean's throat, sees the scratches there, rivulets of blood trickling slowly down beneath the collar of his jacket. "That thing had you, too," he says. 

Dean's eyes go dark. "Not for long." Sam notices his hands then, torn and bleeding. A picture snaps into focus: Dean, entangled, with eyes only for Sam, dying. 

"Dean," Sam says, then stops, because his throat has closed and it's worse than being tangled up in certain death. He lifts Dean's hands with his own, turns them over, examines them gently with his fingertips touching Dean's palms. "Your hands are full of splinters."

Dean pulls away slowly, so that Sam's fingertips never break connection until the last moment, and then Dean turns away. "How about if you drive?" 

On the way back to the motel, they stop at an all-night drug store for peroxide, cotton balls and tweezers. Dean makes a few lame jokes about Androcles while Sam patiently picks out all the splinters he can find. Dean sits beneath the hotel lamp and holds it tilted forward, shade off, naked bulb so bright and hot it makes Sam squint. He loses count of the tiny wood shards around fifty or so. 

When it's finished, Dean washes his hands and Sam dabs them with peroxide, but Dean won't let him wrap them in gauze. "Doesn't hurt much," he says, switching off the lamp. For a moment the darkness is disorienting, so much so that when Dean reaches up to ruffle his hair, Sam misses the motion and it catches him off guard. He draws in his breath sharply, surprised, and Dean steps closer. Then he steps away and the moment passes. 

Sam brushes his teeth in the bathroom with the door half open. He doesn't bother with the lights, just reaches out and turns the timer to the old-style overhead sun lamp and lets the ticking of the timer drown out everything else. He shucks his jeans and trades up for a more comfortable pair of sweat pants and an old ratty t-shirt of Dean's. In the mirror, he seems normal, though his skin feels stretched too thin, like the too-small shirt. 

Dean is already in bed, curled up on his stomach. No TV this time. Sam can hear the rain hitting the roof as the timer shuts off, and then it's just the sounds of rain and Dean's even breathing, nothing more in the world. Sam sits down on the edge of his bed and turns the light off, but makes no move to lie down. Even without the light, he feels Dean looking at him; he can feel it, like Dean's hand on his back, like Dean's fingers against his throat. 

"Sam." Dean's voice is hoarse, quiet. Sam's breath comes shallow, but there's no command in Dean's voice. Just a request, softly equipped with its own magnetic pull. Sam fights it for a moment, but he sinks into his own longing between breaths, and it's just that easy. He stands up, knees onto Dean's bed, and reaches out. 

Dean catches his hand. One tug, and he's stretched out full length beside Dean. The heat from his brother's body could light the whole damn town. 

He has just enough time to start turning over moral judgments in the back of his brain before Dean's hand brushes against his cheek, cups his jaw, short-circuits all the arguments against. Sam wonders if they've just gone too far past normal into that realm of things no one else can ever understand, but Dean's alive here, with him, and they can't rely on that to stay true forever. 

A moment later Dean's hands slide beneath his t-shirt, rucking it up, and the rough edges of fresh wounds catch on Sam's skin. He hears the tiny sound he makes; it emerges from his throat without his permission, but Dean's answering soft growl is lost against Sam's lips. They kiss slowly, mouths open, Dean's tongue stroking over his own like he owns the right, a pure illustration of everything forbidden.

Dean pulls the shirt up and off Sam's body, which is fine because it didn't fit anyway, and Sam returns the favor. Dean gets back to kissing him as soon as that's out of the way, and Sam is lost in it, blissfully, deeply gone while Dean's hands glide over his back, searing their imprint into his skin. 

There's a moment, just before Dean pushes his sweats down over his hips, where Sam knows Dean had it all figured out. He's not sure how long, but he does know now that Dean could have told him, would have, if he'd thought Sam was ready to understand. All the things he wants, all the things that aren't gone forever, are right here. 

One more push and Sam is on his back, and Dean doesn't waste any time. He holds Sam still when he takes Sam's cock in, stills when Sam cries out. "Christ, oh, _God,_ Dean, oh..." He trails off, trembling, just as Dean starts to move his tongue over the length, slow licking strokes that swirl from base to tip. 

Sam comes, every inch of his body shaking with adrenaline-rush, and it's never been so good or felt so horribly right. His hands feel heavy, but he lifts one to prod Dean's shoulder, lift him to within arm's reach. Dean bats his hand away and buries his face in Sam's stomach, his arm moving. Sam realizes too late that Dean's getting himself off, quick rough strokes of his own hand, and when he comes, he bares his teeth against Sam's belly, a soundless shout. 

Among all the random bits of worry roaming around in Sam's head, there's guilt to be processed. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. Their life is what it is, and maybe it always will be, or maybe just until they kill that motherfucking demon, or until they find their dad. 

For now, Dean's sprawled against Sam, solid warmth, craved comfort, and Sam finally sleeps without dreaming. 

 

_Sunday_

 

Breakfast isn't much to write home about: eggs wrapped in stale tortillas and small cups of bitter coffee before dawn, Sam anxious to get moving, and Dean only half-awake. 

"What the hell do they make this from, boot tar and asphalt?" Dean says, wrinkling his nose down toward the coffee. 

"Boot tar isn't quite so tangy," Sam says, grinning. 

The diner's cream looks curdled, so they suffer the heart-jolt of pure black caffeinated sludge. Sam buys two muffins for the road and leaves a tip the size of the actual bill, which provokes a cuff to the head from Dean. Sam reminds himself Dean has never been on the wrong end of a bad tip.

They load up quickly, since they barely unpacked. Sam drives, because Dean's hands don't look much better than the night before, and they have a long way to go before they can stop. They don't touch, they don't look much at each other, but it's there, now; too late to call it back, and Sam doesn't want to, anyway. 

Barely ten miles down the road, Dean breaks open both muffins and eats them without offering a single crumb to Sam. Then he asks, "Dude, if you could do anything right now, what would it be?"

"Kick your ass?" Sam suggests, trying not to look as Dean licks the last of their lunch from his fingers. 

"Lame. Think big." Dean slouches on the seat, one arm slung over the back, his thumb resting on the nape of Sam's neck. 

The not-vision flashes in his mind, its edges no longer blurred and indistinct. Sam smiles as it unfolds. "I'd buy a truck," he says. "Candy-apple red."


End file.
